<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Five Times Percy Felt More Than Human, and the One Time He Came Home by kitty_pryde_bi_pride</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432049">Five Times Percy Felt More Than Human, and the One Time He Came Home</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_pryde_bi_pride/pseuds/kitty_pryde_bi_pride'>kitty_pryde_bi_pride</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>5+1 Works [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Percy Jackson and the Olympians &amp; Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5+1 Things, Character Study, Dark Percy, Dark Percy Jackson, Family Feels, Gen, Powerful Percy Jackson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:08:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24432049</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitty_pryde_bi_pride/pseuds/kitty_pryde_bi_pride</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Percy is 17, almost an adult, when he masters control over his father’s domain. </p><p>He hasn’t hit a ceiling on his power yet and he doesn’t think he ever will, but he feels strong enough that he can barely remember the fear of losing he felt at 12 when he fought the minotaur.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>5+1 Works [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1766371</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>746</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Five Times Percy Felt More Than Human, and the One Time He Came Home</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Percy is 12, he learns how to fight.</p><p>He does it quickly, faster than anyone had really expected of him, no matter how supportive they pretend to be- he feels like all of Hermes cabin is watching him a little closer as he tries to relax. Everyone but Luke seems to be a bit wary.</p><p>They don’t even know who his godly parent is – Ares could be likely, he hears, based on his sword fighting skill, but he can’t imagine being in a cabin with Clarisse – and they’ve already deemed him a threat.</p><p>It’s quite a bit lonelier than he’d like to admit.</p><p>He remembers battling the Minotaur, feeling the rain hitting his skin as he fought as hard as he could for his mom, who was already essentially gone, and feels that fighting is the only thing he can do to get her back again. </p><p>His mom, the undeniably sweetest person in the world, would tell him that it was okay, would cup his face and smile at him and tell him he’s too young to feel all this weight on him, but she’s not here right now.</p><p>Luke is, though, and Percy trains with him separately as much as he can. Based off what Annabeth keeps saying when she thinks he isn’t listening; something is coming and he’s at the center of it. Even if that wasn’t the case, he’s determined to fight his way to hell to save his mom.</p><p>He hurls himself at each training dummy, slashing and stabbing, an uncoordinated display of desperate emotion. Luke reminds him to take water breaks, critically watching his clear improvement afterwards, and he tries to convince himself he’s imagining the knowing look in his eyes. </p><p>He’s not very good yet, he thinks, but Chiron stops in one day, looks at the decimated training center, and pulls Luke aside. He doesn’t hear everything they say, but he hears the word “prodigy” and feels embarrassed- he doesn’t think he ever heard that word at school.</p><p>He keeps fighting his way to his mom, forcing himself to brute force his way through every problem, and thinks one day monsters will know his name and, instead of feeling cruel, they’ll feel fear.</p><p>He fights to protect himself and save his mom, he would do anything to keep those he loves safe, and he’s determined to practice his sword until he can do so. </p><p> </p><p>He is 15 when he erupts a volcano and lands on Ogygia.</p><p>He doesn’t remember most of it, for a long while, but under Calypso’s careful watch and support it slowly begins coming back to him. </p><p>It doesn’t come in thoughts, at first, instead, he recalls it through what he was feeling. He can remember reaching for water but only sensing brutal heat and dry earth, the feeling of panic as he tried to reach out to anything but nothing responds. </p><p>The drive for survival proved to be stronger than the weight of hopelessness in the end, and he reached out as far as he could and realized he can feel not only the sturdy rock surrounding him but the burning, pulsing magma lying dormant just below. </p><p>He closes his eyes, summoning the same feeling on the peaceful island he’s stranded on, and can feel the earth still beneath him. </p><p>His thoughts had been clear: lava moved like liquid rock, and he would force it to bow to him. Rock itself was unmovable, but he was unstoppable and would crush anything in his way in a tidal wave of force.</p><p>Calypso is kind and gentle, and he sees a look of awe when he tries to explain the feeling to her. It doesn’t make him feel better though- if anything, the idea that someone as old as Calypso, someone who had seen titans and gods battle, thought that his power was worthy of admiration was more than a little intimidating. </p><p>He has to leave for camp and watches his funeral, thinking about how easy it would be to tell them about how he set off the volcano. He thinks of how Chiron called him the son of the Earthshaker when he was chosen and how easily they’d accept the expansion of his power.</p><p>Then he thinks about how nervous his fellow campers seem around him whenever he does a new trick with water and defeats another legendary monster, how Annabeth took him aside once and told him his name meant “destroyer”, and decides that this will be his secret.</p><p>No one questions him when he claims he blew it up on accident. </p><p> </p><p>The prophecy comes to a head on Percy’s 16th birthday, and he feels incredibly unprepared. He follows his friends where they tell him to go, relying on Nino’s connection with the gods and Annabeth’s brilliance and Thalia’s reinforcements, but ultimately, he knows he shouldn’t be the main hero. He doesn’t think he deserves it.</p><p>What he lacks in planning and caution, though, he makes up for in raw power, and he’s determined to use it to protect his friends. </p><p>He walks out to meet Kronos in battle, fresh from tricking two vengeful river gods into joining his side, and can’t bring himself to feel afraid. He’s invulnerable and he walks on water and he laughs at how he used to be afraid of fighting when it’s the only thing he seems good for.</p><p>He summons a miniature hurricane as easily as he breathes and grins when the Mad Titan falters at the sight of it. </p><p>Good, he thinks, Kronos should be afraid. </p><p>He is Perseus, the Destroyer, killer of countless monsters and the unwilling hero of the prophecy and he will not be defeated. He is the sea, an unstoppable force forever meeting immovable objects and he will not be the one to falter.</p><p>It’s a good thing that the battlefield is cleared of his friends while he does this because the storm he’s created is growing steadily. They’ve left him to fight their battles on his own, but he’d still do anything to save them.</p><p>He hits Kronos and Luke – practically interchangeable at this point – with his sword, drawing golden blood, and wonder for a moment if he could take control of even that.</p><p>The thought scares him, and he redoubles his efforts into wearing the enemy down, pushing at that so hard they have no choice but to step back.</p><p> </p><p>Barely a year later, when Percy is still solidly 16, Hera wipes his memory and throws him into another quest.</p><p>His skill remains, his powers muscle memory and his sword skills effortless. </p><p>He speaks to Lupa and her pack in their language, battles monsters with a sword that feels like an extension of his arm, commands the earth – even as unyielding as it seems lately – into sheltering and protecting him, and summons the sea from miles away to hold off the monsters that seem drawn to him, that know his name. </p><p>All he has is a vague impression of someone he thinks he loves and his power, and he clings to the only certain security left.</p><p>Octavian seems uncertain of how to read him – no matter how much he postures, augurs possess a frightening level of insight that unsettles Percy – and seems to decide he’s a Greek threat. He watches as the seer struggles to turn the Romans against him and some part of him feels amused at the idea of them trying to threaten him.</p><p>Spirits plague him, Hazel, and Frank on their journey and he feels a need to defend them. He easily draws threats towards him, defeating karpoi and snakes and giants and defending them from hard. They see Polybotes’ army and he feels deeply hurt from the betrayal of the cyclops, even though Hazel seems convinced that he shouldn’t. </p><p>They meet Phineas, a human monster, and he easily manipulates Gaea into choosing him. It doesn’t matter what her reasons are for saving him, he thinks, because he’s the most valuable player in any game he’s drafted into.</p><p>More monsters are drawn to him and ally with their group: Ella and Arion and even Tyson, and it helps him realize he feels a sense of kinship with not only his half-brother, but all the so-called monsters.</p><p>They arrive in the Land Beyond the Gods and Percy thinks he’s home.</p><p>He’s starting to know who he is, now, and he’s more than willing to embrace his inner demons to protect his friends. He does more than just summon a storm- he becomes one. He can feel Thanatos’s judging eyes on him as he easily strikes down shades, picking up their speed and imperviousness and using it to augment his own fighting, and realizes he has to get out of there before Frank and Hazel notice.</p><p>He throws himself off a glacier to distract them and they let him; he knows that even if he is more monster and god than human, he still cares for them.</p><p>He tells Annabeth this, once they find each other, and she looks at him nervously and asks if he knows that most of Poseidon’s children are born monstrous.</p><p> </p><p>Percy is 17, almost an adult, when he masters control over his father’s domain. </p><p>He hasn’t hit a ceiling on his power yet and he doesn’t think he ever will, but he feels strong enough that he can barely remember the fear of losing he felt at 12 when he fought the minotaur. </p><p>He kept pushing his power, pushing his limits, and after Tartarus, he realized that he could control more than just water or earth- he can feel the water inside people’s cells, the blood in their veins, feels it pulsing and moving and being so distracting.</p><p>He puts a lot of work into not using it on any campers or displaying this gift in front of anyone who could hinder his development, but it all goes to waste when a horde of monsters sneak into camp and start attacking everyone.</p><p>He fights with his sword and water, at first, but he hears a camper – just barely 12 and fresh to learning about their parentage, like he had been – cry out, wounded, and he snaps. He can feel every single creature on the battlefield, demigods and centaurs and gods and monsters alike, and he takes the monsters and tugs.</p><p>He evaporates the blood in their veins, fills their cells with so much water they burst, and watches as every single monster dies instantaneously on the fields.</p><p>Younger campers start looking around nervously, some braver kids grabbing spoils of war near them, but his peers have come to know inexplicable power tends to come from one source.</p><p>He watches as a group, Annabeth and Clarisse, Jason and Piper, Will and Nico walk towards him cautiously, looks of clear concern on their faces, and he laughs at how much he doesn’t want it anymore.</p><p>He loves his friends, would sacrifice anything for them and fight any enemy on their behalf, but he won’t accept them asking him to limit his power. It’s as much a part of him as his fatal flaw, now, and he doesn’t think he’d be able to choose between them.</p><p>He feels the blood flowing through their veins and his fists clench for just a moment – it’s barely a second, but he imagines how it would feel to rip open their arteries and watch them look concerned over their own broken bodies – and it scares him enough that he runs to the water where they cannot follow.</p><p> </p><p>He shows up at his mom’s house two hours later, perfectly dry – even now, water doesn’t touch him – and falls into her arms. She asks where Annabeth is, and he shakes his head into her shoulder. She strokes his hair and hugs him tightly and walks him over to their couch, sitting down with him.</p><p>Suddenly, his powers growing too rapidly for him to manage and his worry for those in his life and the weight of another prophecy looming around the corner don’t bother him.</p><p>In his mother’s arms, he remembers why he fights so hard for everyone.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>